The Vigo County School Corp. plans to join a class action lawsuit against social media companies over claims that their addictive platforms have contributed to youth mental health issues.

The School Board voted Monday to join the lawsuit, based on the administration’s recommendation.

“Since social media services have become increasingly more prevalent, the need for mental health supports among our students and families have also increased significantly,” Superintendent Chris Himsel said during the meeting.

“Whether that’s coincidence or cause, that’s an issue for another day, but that’s what we’ve noticed,” he said.

Students are not necessarily in a position to navigate and avoid many of the addictive aspects of social media, he said.

The social media providers identified in the litigation “utilize business practices that, in our opinion, prey upon and take advantage of our children’s naïveté and use these practices to take advantage of the addictive nature of social media services as a way of capturing the attention of our youth,” he said.

The district is joining other Indiana districts in the litigation. The law firm involved is Wagstaff & Cartmell of Kansas City, which has teamed up with a national coalition of firms to represent school districts in the matter.

In joining, one goal is to curtail some of those behaviors of the social media companies “so we can reduce the impact of those addictive practices,” Himsel said.

Another goal is financial compensation to offset some of the costs the school district incurs as it provides increased mental health supports to address some of the issues students face resulting from social media, Himsel said.

Districts who join the lawsuit will provide information about what they’ve experienced in terms of an increased need for mental health supports and increased levels of student distraction related to social media, he said.

The social media providers included in the lawsuit are YouTube, Tik Tok, Snap Chat and Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram).

Himsel said he didn’t know the timeline. He said there would be no legal fees for the school district.

He shared with the board that during his time in the classroom teaching high school students last year, social media distracted students during instruction and it also impacted student peer relationships.

In other matters, the board approved a new repair/replacement self-insurance program for damaged Chromebooks.

Parents will have the option of participating in the self-insurance program for $20 (per student). Funds collected would be used to create a self-insurance fund to address repairs.

The proposal outlines what repair fees would be for damaged Chromebooks, and those fees would be reduced for those who participate in the self-insurance program.

The insurance program is for damages, whether accidental, due to negligence or intentional.

“We are not talking about computer failure itself. If the motherboard fails because it’s an electronic issue with the company that built the computer, there’s not going to be a damage fee associated with it,” Himsel said. “We’re talking about damage that is associated with either intentional behavior or just simply not taking good care of the device.”

He added, “What we’re trying to do is offer parents a more affordable way of addressing the costs of those repairs.”

The self insurance fund will help cover those costs “and make this a sustainable program as well as try to reduce the total impact on our parents,” he said.

Whether a person purchases the insurance or not, for the first incident involving damages, the repair fee is waived.

For those who purchase insurance, the second incident also will have fees waived (for those who don’t purchase it, damage repair fees will be assessed for the second incident).

For the third incident involving damage (and any additional incidents), both those who purchase the insurance and those who don’t will pay damage/repair fees, but those fees will be reduced for those who purchase the insurance.

For example, a major repair, such as screen replacement, would cost $75 for someone participating in the self-insurance program; that same repair would cost $150 for someone without the insurance.

According to Himsel, “At the end of the day, we have to be able to recover the cost of this to make this a sustainable program.”

There have been some people who don’t want the Chromebooks at all, Himsel told the board.

He noted that many textbook companies are going digital, and the district “has to have a way of delivering those textbooks. I believe the trend will be eventually all of the books will be digital and we will not see hard copies. I don’t think that’s too far off in the distant future.”

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Two years after a new law called for changes in New Hampshire’s mental health licensing, the board that oversees those rules is now taking action to implement it, after pressure from Gov. Chris Sununu.

The 2021 law created two new categories of licenses for social workers, as well as a system of conditional licenses for clinicians who are still working toward full licensure.

But those changes have yet to take effect, because the New Hampshire Board of Mental Health Practice hasn’t adopted the necessary rules. Sununu pointed out the delay in a blistering letter to the board’s chair last month, calling it “unacceptable” and threatening to replace board members if they didn’t act by Sept. 1.

On Friday, the board took one step in what will be a monthslong process to finalize the new regulations, approving draft language. Before the rules are finalized, they’ll also need to go through public comment and legislative approval.

Lindsey Courtney, who directs the state’s Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, hopes the changes expand access to services at a time when the state has a shortage of mental health workers.

The conditional licenses will be available to qualified mental health workers who are practicing under the supervision of a licensed professional, while they accumulate enough hours to get that credential themselves. Courtney said that will allow them to bill private insurance for their services.

As for the two new license types — licensed social worker and licensed social work associate — Courtney said that could allow more people to enter the field.

“It could create a pathway for people who are, you know, still pursuing their education to kind of move up the ladder and increase their scope of practice,” she said.

She says the rules will likely be finalized around the end of this year or early next year.

The board’s chair, Samuel Rosario, did not respond to a message at the counseling agency where he works. NHPR also reached out to the governor’s office for comment and had not heard back as of press time.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: After push from Sununu, NH mental health board moves ahead on licensing rules